Behold, directly overhead, a certain strange star was suddenly seen...
Amazed, and as if astonished and stupefied, I stood still.

— Tycho Brahe

Astronomy

NASA officially adds SpaceX's giant Starship megarocket to its launch roster

Space.com - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 1:45pm
SpaceX is building Starship as a full reusable heavy-lift rocket to fly astronauts to the moon and Mars.
Categories: Astronomy

Watch SpaceX Launch Historic Fram2 Crewed Mission over Earth’s Poles Tonight

Scientific American.com - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 1:45pm

Fram2, a first-of-its-kind private mission to send four astronauts into polar orbit around Earth, is about to launch

Categories: Astronomy

Modeling Lunar ISRU Extraction Can Help Plan Future Prototypes

Universe Today - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 1:12pm

In-situ resource utilization will likely play a major role in any future long-term settlement of the Moon. However, designing such a system in advance with our current level of knowledge will prove difficult, mainly because there's so much uncertainty around both the availability of those resources and the efficacy of the processes used to extract them. Luckily, researchers have tools that can try to deal with both of those uncertainties - statistical modeling. A team from Imperial College London, the University of Munich, and the Luxembourg Institue of Science and Technology recently released a pre-print paper on arXiv that uses a well-known statistical modeling method known as Monte Carlo simulation to try to assess what type of ISRU plan would be best for use on the Moon.

Categories: Astronomy

Cave spiders use their webs in a way that hasn't been seen before

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 1:00pm
Cave-dwelling orb spiders have adapted their webs so they act as tripwires for prey that crawl on the walls of the caves
Categories: Astronomy

Cave spiders use their webs in a way that hasn't been seen before

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 1:00pm
Cave-dwelling orb spiders have adapted their webs so they act as tripwires for prey that crawl on the walls of the caves
Categories: Astronomy

Venus Could Be Much More Volcanically Active Than We Thought

Universe Today - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 12:53pm

Even though Jupiter's moon Io is considered the most volcanically active world in the Solar System, Venus actually has more volcanoes and volcanic features on its surface. For a long time, scientists thought that most of these features and volcanoes were ancient remnants of the planet's geological past. However, newer research shows that Venus is still volcanically active.

Categories: Astronomy

Big Banks Quietly Prepare for Catastrophic Climate Change

Scientific American.com - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 12:15pm

Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and an international banking group have quietly concluded that climate change will likely exceed the Paris Agreement's 2 degree goal and are examining how to maintain profits

Categories: Astronomy

A revolutionary new understanding of autism in girls

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 12:00pm
By studying the brains of autistic girls, we now know the condition presents differently in them than in boys, suggesting that huge numbers of women have gone undiagnosed
Categories: Astronomy

A revolutionary new understanding of autism in girls

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 12:00pm
By studying the brains of autistic girls, we now know the condition presents differently in them than in boys, suggesting that huge numbers of women have gone undiagnosed
Categories: Astronomy

Mission Control 'members only': NASA flight directors don new jacket

Space.com - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 12:00pm
NASA's flight directors have taken a page from the astronauts they support, if not also the Masters, Hells Angels and Saturday Night Live's Five-Timers Club. There is now a flight director's jacket.
Categories: Astronomy

Hubble Telescope captures gorgeous new view of Milky Way's star-packed galactic neighbor (photo)

Space.com - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 12:00pm
The Hubble Space Telescope has sent back a gorgeous new view of one of our nearest galactic neighbors, which is full of bright, colorful stars.
Categories: Astronomy

Is There a Plus Side to Mental Labor?

Scientific American.com - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 11:15am

Women shoulder most of the work in managing a family and tell us it’s exhausting, but some also say it has benefits

Categories: Astronomy

Top U.S. Researchers Warn against ‘Climate of Fear’ Threatening Science

Scientific American.com - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 11:00am

Despite fears that speaking out will make them targets, top researchers warn that the Trump administration’s “wholesale assault on U.S. science” will harm the nation

Categories: Astronomy

US Space Force wants a new 'orbital carrier' to be a satellite launch pad in space

Space.com - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 11:00am
The U.S. Space Force is funding the development of a new "Orbital Carrier" spacecraft that can deploy multiple satellites when needed.
Categories: Astronomy

Read the latest edition of ESA Impact

ESO Top News - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 10:42am

Read the latest edition of ESA Impact

Categories: Astronomy

Biomass cleared for fuelling

ESO Top News - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 10:39am
Image: Biomass cleared for fuelling
Categories: Astronomy

Why 50-Degree-F Days Feel Warmer in Spring Than in Fall

Scientific American.com - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 10:30am

There are real, physiological reasons why the same temperature feels different in April and October

Categories: Astronomy

This sulfur-based space molecule could tell us about the emergence of life on Earth

Space.com - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 10:00am
Researchers have created a "fingerprint" of a sulfur-based molecule found in space that may offer new clues about the formation of life on Earth.
Categories: Astronomy

SpaceX's private Fram2 launch over Earth's poles will send astronauts where no one has gone before

Space.com - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 9:00am
SpaceX's Fram2 astronaut mission is set to launch toward a polar orbit on March 31, which will be a first for human spaceflight. Why has this never been done before?
Categories: Astronomy

Quantum eavesdropping could work even from inside a black hole

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Mon, 03/31/2025 - 8:00am
An eavesdropper hiding inside a black hole could still obtain information about quantum objects on its outside, a finding that reveals how effectively black holes destroy the quantum states near their event horizons
Categories: Astronomy